Cowboys on movies - why do they manually move the hammer, instead of pulling the trigger?

[Valso]

Ever since I can remember myself I've noticed that on all cowboy movies they manually move the hammer of the revolver when shooting, instead of just pulling the trigger. Why's that? Does that make the revolver shoot faster or is it something else?

[Tyrael]

They're single action revolvers. You need to pull the hammer back then pull the trigger to fire it. Fanning the hammer the way they do sometimes, means they hold the trigger down and aim with one hand, and with the other hand they rapidly pull the hammer back. With the trigger held down the hammer will immediately drop onto the next round in rapid succession.

[MysticDevice]

With a single action revolver the trigger does not engage the hammer. The hammer must be cocked manually each time in order to set the trigger into firing position.

Double action revolvers, where pulling the trigger also cocks the hammer, came later.

[andreasderjuengere]

... so that the impact of your free hand will shake the barrel.

This way you will not kill anyone.

A true Christian's attitude :)

[Valso]

Knowing the history of Christians and how the most common cause of death was always god, their attitude is more like "kill as many as you can, so that you enter heaven".

[andreasderjuengere]

I quite agree with this aspect of history.
But these were guys with swords, pikes, howitzers and bombs.
My ''model Christian'' was rather meant as the theoretical ideal, heh heh

[Valso]

There's no such a thing as "ideal" when it comes to christians, lol

[bolverk]

Early revolvers were Single Action, which means you had to manually cock the hammer, as the technology developed Double Action became the norm where you can cock and fire the revolver with a single pull of the trigger.

[exitseven]

When you cock the gun it is ready to fire. It just takes a little pressure on the trigger to fire it. If the gun is not cocked you have to create thst motion with the trigger pull. It tskes mor effort and more time.

[KrakenAttackin]

Because those pistols were single action only.

[KrakenAttackin]

You have to pull the hammer back than use the trigger to release the hammer. Today's revolvers are double action, meaning squeezing the trigger both pulls the hammer back and drops it.

[MikeInHawaii]

They were using single action revolvers.

[Iron_Man]

Maybe that’s just for show on the movies